Around 5,000 people have fled from their homes in Bambari following clashes between rival militias over the past few days, demonstrating how fragile the situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) remains ahead of next month’s presidential election, the UN refugee agency has said.

The latest flare-up in Bambari erupted after a 19-year-old Muslim was beheaded by fighters on August 20, according to the UNHCR.

In a town hit hard by violence, the new set of clashes around Bambari prompted the escape of almost 5,000 people in recent days, seeking shelter at the UN’s nearby base.

“We cannot say the country is at peace – because the events in Bambari show how fragile the situation remains,” Dalia al-Achi, spokesperson for the UNHCR, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

“They are living in a [former] cotton factory [at the UN base] where there is no sanitation, lights or any infrastructure. It is not fit for living,” she said.

On Friday, Diane Corner, deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), said in a tweet that 5,000 people had been displaced and that the protection of civilians remained the mission’s top priority.

With just over a month left before presidential elections are held in the country, experts are not convinced the country would be able to host credible polls.

More than one million people have been displaced since Muslim-led Seleka rebels took the capital, Bangui, in March 2013.

Following a spate of abuses by the Seleka, vigilante groups known as anti-Balaka (anti-machete), made up of animist and Christian fighters, emerged to fight off the new leadership.

They also targeted the country’s Muslim minority, seen as sympathetic to the Seleka.

The country has been run by a transitional government since January 2014, after the Seleka were forced out of the capital.

Over the past five months, thousands have been returning to CAR as the situation in the country was seen to be improving, but the recent violence is likely to undo a lot of the efforts being put into rebuilding the nation.

“More than half the districts of the Central African Republic continue to be controlled by the Seleka coalition and its allies, who have not allowed a return of the national administration to the areas they control,” Peter Bouckaert, emergency director at Human Rights Watch, said.

Bouckaert told Al Jazeera that the bloodshed may have reduced over the last twelve months, but attributed the drop in violence to the fact that most Muslims had been “forced to flee [and] not because the war is over”.

Bouckaert said that despite the obvious weaknesses of hosting presidential polls under the current conditions, the EU and France continue to push for the elections.

“The danger is that they see a quick and flawed election as an excuse to once again abandon the Central African Republic, with a claim that the country will then have made a ‘democratic transition’,” Bouckaert said.

“A very large percentage of the population, particularly Muslims living in refugee camps in Chad and Cameroon, but also many rural people, have not even been registered to vote yet, and preparation for a national vote has been minimal,” he said.

The UN says more than half the country’s population are still in need of aid, while 1.5 million people were affected by food insecurity.

In early August, the UN said that only 31 percent of the humanitarian appeal for the CAR had been secured. Aurelien Agbenonci, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in CAR, told Al Jazeera at the time that if more support was not forthcoming, the UN “won’t be able to continue humanitarian activities till the end of the year”.

Militias have taken advantage of the political vacuum in Central African Republic (CAR), engaging in ethnic cleansing of Muslims in a bid to erase the community from the country, human rights group Amnesty International has said.

Discussing Friday’s report, entitled “Erased identity: Muslims in ethnically cleansed areas of the Central African Republic,” Joanne Mariner, a senior crisis response adviser at the UK-based organisation, told Al Jazeera that Muslims in the western half of the country were being repressed and forced to abandon their religion.

More than 30,000 Muslims are living in seven enclaves, guarded by UN troops, across the country, but for those living outside, especially in rural areas, they are being targeted with impunity, the report found.

“They not allowed to express themselves as Muslims; if they are outside the enclaves, they cannot pray, dress in any way that identifies them as Muslim,” Mariner said.

“Their survival depends on a daily routine of negotiation with anti-Balaka fighters.”

Mariner said that many had been forced convert to Christianity or face persecution from the community

‘Failed state’

More than one million people have been displaced since Muslim-led Seleka rebels took control of Bangui, the capital, in March 2013.

Following a spate of abuses by the Seleka rebels, vigilante groups known as anti-Balaka (anti-machete) emerged to fight off the new leadership.

But the anti-Balaka, made up of animist and Christian fighters, also targeted the country’s Muslim minority, seen as sympathetic to the Seleka.

Amnesty’s report, based on a series of interviews with residents across CAR, says militias “unleashed a violent wave of ethnic cleansing aimed at forcing Muslims to leave the country”.

“The continued insecurity and threat from the anti-Balaka comes from there being an absence of a state,” Mariner said.

Though violence in CAR has tapered off since late 2014, the country remains largely insecure.

The collapse of the state apparatus and the fragility of the transitional government have left parts of the country to the mercy of militia groups in the hinterlands.

Concerns remain that despite the perceived calm, the root causes of the crisis have yet to be addressed.

Amnesty’s report comes just days after the International Rescue Committee said CAR “needs a new start, or it will become the case study of a failed state”.

“In this part of the country, very few families have been spared the pain and uncertainty of being separated from loved ones,” Scott Doucet, head of the ICRC sub-delegation for the west of the country, said.

The UN says that that 2.7 million people, more than half the population, are still in need of aid, while 1.5 million people were affected by food insecurity.

Christian militias in Central African Republic have carried out ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population during the country’s ongoing civil war, but there is no proof there was genocidal intent, a United Nations commission of inquiry has said.

“Thousands of people died as a result of the conflict. Human rights violations and abuses were committed by all parties. The Seleka coalition and the anti-balaka are also responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the inquiry said on Thursday.

“Although the commission cannot conclude that there was genocide, ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population by the anti-balaka constitutes a crime against humanity,” the report said.

The final report of the inquiry, which was submitted to the UN Security Council on December 19, said up to 6,000 people had been killed though it “considers that such estimates fail to capture the full magnitude of the killings that occurred”.

The mostly Christian or animist “anti-balaka” militia took up arms in 2013 in response to months of looting and killing by mostly Muslim Seleka rebels who had toppled President Francois Bozize and seized power in March the same year.

The UN Security Council established the commission of inquiry in December 2013.

Preventing violence

In September 2014, the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into allegations of murder, rape and the recruiting of child soldiers in the Central African Republic.

Some 5,600 African Union peacekeepers, deployed in December 2013, and about 2,000 French troops have struggled to stem the violence in the impoverished landlocked country of 4.6 million people.

The United Nations took over the African Union peacekeeping mission in September and is mandated by the Security Council to double its size to nearly 12,000 troops and police.

The UN commission of inquiry said the deployment of the African Union peacekeepers, French troops and then the UN peacekeeping mission (MINUSCA) had “been primarily responsible for the prevention of an even greater explosion of violence”.